Review: ‘Forgotten’

Two gorgeous women find themselves caught in a net of red herrings in "Forgotten," from tyro femme helmer Alex Schmidt.

Two gorgeous women find themselves caught in a net of red herrings in “Forgotten,” from tyro femme helmer Alex Schmidt. Set in an atmospherically creepy Teuton fishing village, this horror-thriller combo tries to travel from its convincing setup to its surprisingly neat conclusion via a minefield of unnecessary, goodwill-draining twists, with the entire midsection more concerned with delivering a new curve every minute than keeping things grounded in a coherent universe. Genre fests and labels will sign on, though theatrical distribs might be harder to convince.

Severe-looking Clarissa (Mina Tander) overdoses on pills and finds that the ER worker looking after her, Hanna (Dutch thesp Laura de Boer, dubbed), is a childhood friend she used to go on vacation with. Cue a return to the foggy island of their youth with Hanna’s daughter (Lina Koehlert) for a girls-only sojourn that soon turns ugly, courtesy of regional legends (in husky v.o.), memories (in flashbacks), hints of the supernatural and the obligatory sinister locals. Schmidt’s got a talent for mood and composition, though thesping remains somewhat frigid and plotting contortionistic. The thunderous score gave the speakers a good workout at the screening caught.